Dryer
by HashtagLEH
Summary: "Normal is a setting on the dryer. It's not meant for people like us." But the Joker has made his peace with that. Because if he was normal, he never would have met Harley Quinn - and wasn't that a dark thought?


**This idea sort of hit me out of no where. If you watch the movie, in the scene where he falls back with the weapons all circled around him, in the corner you can see what looks to me like baby clothes. And then after the scene where Harley has her 'normal' daydream, I thought about the connections and this came about. Hope you enjoy!**

 **...**

He knows she wants normal, even through the insanity he'd created in her. Some things could never be removed or changed in a person, and a normal life is something she's always wanted. The insanity, being with the Joker – that was just a vacation. She still loved being with him and working with him and taunting Batsy and being _dangerous_ – but at the end of the day she wanted something new.

He'd found the baby clothes in her bottom dresser drawer one day – a day when she was still with him. She'd watched him from the bed as he examined the clothes silently with an unreadable expression on his face.

"You want normal?" he said slowly, turning to look at her curiously. She just shrugged, expression casual.

"Baby…" he said derisively. " _We_ don't do normal."

"Mm-hm," Harley accepts easily with a nod. He thinks this might be one of these moments where she's not all there, where she won't remember this conversation later because she's stuck too deeply in her own mind.

"'Normal' is a setting on the dryer," he continued pressing his point, tossing the baby clothes carelessly back into the drawer before stepping closer to her on the bed. "It's not _meant_ for people like us."

He remembers when he wished for the same thing she did, in the beginning. He remembers the child-sized hand grenades and small blades he'd put in a box at the back of his closet. He remembers the slap in the face he'd needed to realize that 'normal' was not a thing meant for him.

Later, when she's gone, he pulls out the baby clothes. They remind him of her. He puts them on the far side away from him. The blades and weapons all pointed to him where he sits on the floor, and he thinks it's poetic that things meant for destruction and pain would divide him from what he once so longed for. It is, after all, what finally made his wishful thinking impossible.

And then, one of his men comes in – he tells him they've found her. His Harley is in Lousiana.

He falls back on the floor, and laughs. Because he knows he's insane, and so is Harley, and to get even a smidgen of normal – to get the woman he wants back with him – he _has_ to be insane. He _can't_ be normal. Because anyone in their right mind wouldn't consider the lengths he's going to to get his woman back.

And later, after she thought he was dead and he came back and broke her out of the prison as planned in the first place, they lie in bed together. She's asleep, a new collar that said "Puddin'" on it around her neck, and she hugs her body close to his while he stares up at the ceiling and listens to her soft snores.

No, they didn't do normal, the two of them. He would never have kids with her or look like a typical businessman like most other men in the world or be seen off with a kiss to work. He would never live in a perfect house with a white picket fence and worry about car payments and taxes and driving kids to school on time with their lunches packed in their bags.

But he'd made peace with that. He had Harley, and that was enough for him. If he had Harley, he could be as abnormal as needed. Because if he had been normal, he never would have met her, and wasn't that a dark thought?

So, while neither of them were ones to express their love to each other – that was too ordinary – he did care for her, as much as he was capable of caring, and more than anyone else in the world. She was his queen. He would protect her; he would save her when she needed saving.

And God help anyone who crossed her.

 **...**

 **This didn't turn out exactly how I expected it to, but oh well. It's satisfactory enough. Thanks for reading!**


End file.
